


in old days

by deductionist (spectrenegade)



Series: and not to yield [1]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, all the clues, vague backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-28 01:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectrenegade/pseuds/deductionist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her mind was shattered; broken into a million fragments.<br/>His heart was broken; shattered into a million pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. mind

Joan never dreamt. Not of warm summer nights, childhood fears, or lustful encounters. It was a peculiar thing, but how could she miss something she had never known?

The morning sun greeted her like a coy lover, barely hidden by the sheer of polyester. The day had been like any other: a lazy breakfast followed by an uncomfortable traffic jam and three cups of coffee before a standard consultation. Her smile was filled with genuine joy as she entered the room.

He was young, just a small, pale thing with wispy auburn hair and olive eyes that shone with mischief despite the illness. His family was loving, stubborn and hopeful in ways that only poverty could temper. His heart might be failing his body but it certainly hadn’t his soul.

It was a careless oversight; the result of caffeine, impatience, arrogance and routine.

His steady pulse disintegrated in an instant, stuttering out like a fragile whisper. The fixed sonic flat line shot through the room, ricocheting off the walls. It tore straight through Joan like a wound; shattering not flesh, blood and bone but nerve, spirit, heart. It was gaping and bloody, tendrils of muscle blown from their intricate pattern and whipping out, infecting every area of her life as cancer.

She froze, swarmed by colleagues, then guided from the room by a faceless nurse as others pursued an ill-fated attempt as revival. With the countenance of an automaton, she rinsed the blood from her gloves for too long, peeling them off as they clung to her delicate fingers. With a deep breath, Joan left surgical and wove through the hum of activity to find the family. She was determined to be proper; admit her misstep and play doctor for the last time.

They blanched with shock. Swore her name. Flung accusations. Made threats.

Wept.

17 hours later; 2 months suspension. How she managed to drive home that morning and not die in a heap of twisted metal, she will never know.

Joan next remembers sitting at her desk, the light of dusk settling over her apartment, desperately trying to drift into any crack in the curtains. The only true illumination was emanating from her computer monitor, where she sat stoic, composing a letter of resignation she did intend to deliver.

Finally, her labors completed, she collapsed into her comforting void. Except that is was no comfort;  a thin sheen of sweat built as she experienced her first nightmare. The first of many to come.

When she awoke some time later (twilight or dusk, the sun wasn’t confessing) and stumbled into her sleek bathroom, intent on taking a shower. Her skin was threatening to suffocate, her guilt drown. Hastily she ripped at her nightclothes, stripping to essentials and stopping only when she caught her sight in the mirror.

Lost?

Joan couldn’t stand it and averted her eyes, no longer able to look herself in the eye. Rapidly her eyes darted around the spacious room; its walls were stark white, countertops chrome, fixtures marble and accents teal. The similarities were subconscious, but no less striking.

Her legs shivered beneath her, threatening to give way to gravity. In a desperate attempt to remain upright she gripped the edge of her sink. After a few deep breaths her focus shifted to her knuckles, white with blood loss. In frenzy, she turned the faucet full blast; she scrubbed and scrubbed until the pristine marble was covered in rivulets of crimson.

Her hands would never be clean.

Sixty-four days saw her back in scrubs, scalpel in hand. She proceeded with a confidence she didn’t feel - her mind had become a battlefield riddled with hidden landmines. Everything was a potential pressure point, threatening detonation. She pretended to ignore the glances of her colleagues, laced with wisps of mistrust and doubt.

Night after night she was haunted: they were not violent, thrashing creatures of torment but seedy turns of circumstance, poisoning her slowly. Darkness was swallowing her slowly, as a wax does the wick, her will the last flickers of flame.

She delivered the letter of resignation. The cancer had won.

Her license renewal forms came in the mail a week later; she didn’t even grace the thought and tossed the unopened post in her neighbors trash can. The doctor was broken irrevocably; she hadn’t the strength to reassemble the pieces, even if she wanted to.

_“Do you believe in love at first sight?”_


	2. heart

Sherlock walked briskly into his - theirs, now - flat, clutching the Chinese take-away bag in one hand, thoughtfully arranged camellia in the other. Handing off the food to the landlady, he called up, “Irene!” He stood at the landing, awaiting a response but was met with silence.  
  
It took just a moment to realize what he’d already observed in the back of his mind: the tell-tale rush of water through old pipes. Shower, then. It wouldn’t do to have dinner grow cold. He bound up the stairs, taking two at a time, eager to present her with the flowers. He moved quickly through the sitting room and kitchen, noting nothing of import. Typically, he would not be one for romantic proclamations, especially of such a forward nature, but today was special. Different. The start of something new. The bedroom door had been left open, he stepped in carefully.  
  
Red. Stop. He dropped the bouquet, the edge of silken petals stained.  
  
5.678 litres. 12 pints.  
  
His brain automatically supplied him with the familiar figures - the amount of blood from a body drained. But seeing it here, in _their_ bedroom, did not fill him with the heady rush of heated adrenaline that such facts normally would. No, in its place was the clawing of dread, across his skin, through veins gone cold.  
  
The facts flew in, unbidden, unwelcome. He had spent his whole life honing their intake, embracing their solidity, relishing in the stability. Knowledge gathered, when paired with his connective art, was more potent than any chemical high ever could be. He saw, despite the shake that was rapidly developing in his knees, hands, voice.  
  
“Hello, may I speak with Inspector Lestrade? Yes, I can hold.”  
  
The shower had been left on - telly had not been. Steam from the shower billowed into the bedroom, humidity enriching the pungent sanguine copper. It threatened to melt his resolve. Bedroom windows were shut - locked, even - the culprit was someone _invited_ , someone _known_. Windows lock from the inside, the landlady would never let an unknown in; not with Sherlock’s well known paranoia with security.  
  
“M has struck again.”  
  
He danced his fingers over the pool of blood, dating the act, they had to have left just moments before. She wasn’t present. It was still warm, alive, even at the edges. A fanciful thought flew through his hypersensitive filters before being dismissed: improbable, impossible. He stood, removed himself to the kitchen and spoke curtly when Lestrade’s worn voice finally registered.  
  
“221 Baker Street, flat B. I am already on the scene.”  
  
Consciousness then blurred: rhythmic lights, gentle touches, soft words, muffled swears. It was all tinged in soy and laced with fire. A year was lost and a continent separated before the details came back into focus. They trickled in, like rain through a barely open pane. He took joy in small things: the rich gold of honey, flowers pressed by paper, smoke through moonlight. When the words died and sympathies passed, he laid the last of the mortar, in effort to resurrect a man he had once been.  
  
 _“I've been hired by your father to be your sober companion.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize Moran says that Irene was killed in _her_ flat in Camden, there are reasons for the discrepancy.


End file.
